Death and Resurrection (The Ballad of Broken Song Book 1)

by Simon Birks

  First, however, he needed to get out of here, alive.

  *

  Pinto wasn’t sure what to make of the expression on his companion’s face, and in the end, he reasoned, it didn’t really matter. They both knew they had to find a way out of this place before they were caught. Pinto looked around. They stood at the offshoot of a larger corridor, which looked as if it ran for at least half the diameter of the structure itself. There would be guards looking for them everywhere.

  He tapped his companion on the shoulder, and put a puzzled look on his face. As an afterthought, he pointed in several directions, one after another. His companion looked at his gestures and thought for a moment. Then a smile appeared on his face.

  The man indicated the long corridor. He moved his hand around an imaginary corner, moved it along and then darted it right, most likely into another room he felt might be safer. Pinto nodded at him to convey his understanding, and the man was already on his way. Pinto, caught slightly off-guard, took a moment before setting off.

  His companion was swift, already several paces in front of him. The guard reached a door and opened it. He waited for Pinto to catch up, and the pair of them went through together.

  Pinto had no idea what to expect from the room. He guessed there would be stairs; why else would the guard have led him there? He looked around, but there was nothing that even resembled stairs, let alone a door.

  “What?” he asked, although he knew the words to be useless. “I don’t understand.”

  His companion led him over to the window, and made him look out. Far below there was river.

  “Oh,” Pinto said. “We’re going to…” and then he made a diving motion with his hand.

  His companion nodded.

  *

  It was the only solution Fijefel could think of in a hurry. It wasn’t clever. It wasn’t easy. It just was. He had led the God to the chute, where all the chamber pots got emptied. As far as he knew, the waste went down and came out of a hole into the river.

  If their lives weren’t being threatened, then he might have felt guilt, but he didn’t. This was their best shot. He saw the God nod his head, reluctantly, and Fijefel went to the main chute. At least they were cleaned regularly. He listened to the roar of the river below and hoped it would break their fall.

  Fijefel lifted the cover off the chute, pretending not to notice the smell that came up from it, and gestured for the God to go first. The God nodded. He put his legs into the chute, put a hand over his nose and pushed himself off. Fijefel waited a few seconds to let the God get a head start. Behind him, he heard noises from the corridor. They were getting close.

  Fijefel waited no longer. He put his legs in, held his nose, and pushed himself off.

  Torched

  The girl no longer stood by the window. Now she was nearer Ma Poppun, sitting on a rug by the fire. She was quiet; apparently whatever was in the Vengeance had stopped talking to Visenai the moment Ma Poppun had woken up.

  Hossip was awake. He made himself a hot drink, and sat across from the cook. It was a strange time. They were like a mute family, spending their evening lost in thought.

  The Ma picked up Visenai’s trousers and looked at the hole that was starting to form in the knee. She searched around for a needle, and retrieved one from the arm of the chair. Next she took a small patch of fabric from the table next to her, measured it up against the hole, and ripped it into a more practical shape.

  On the table was a long wooden box. Ma Poppun flipped open the lid. Inside, various spools had different colour threads wrapped around them. She chose a dark one, and snapped a length of it off.

  Ma Poppun held the needle and thread up in the light of the fire.

  “I can help you,” Hossip said from the other side of the room. “Done plenty of sewing in my time.”

  The cook smiled.

  “Well, I’m not going to refuse an offer. Especially with my eyesight being what it is.”

  Hossip got up.

  “I hate the Vengeance,” Ma Poppun said.

  “I’ve never had much to do with it,” Hossip replied. “I don’t bother it, and it doesn’t bother me.”

  “What about the horses? Does it spook them?”

  “The horses don’t much care either way. It either takes them, or it doesn’t. Mostly, it doesn’t.”

  “And there’s nothing you can do to stop it?”

  “It’s the Vengeance. Not like you get a whole lot of choice in the matter.”

  “Someone’s coming,” Visenai said from the floor.

  “Pardon?”

  “I can feel them. Someone’s coming here. Now.”

  “But, the Vengeance…”

  Hossip put a hand on the cook’s arm.

  “What do they want?” Hossip asked the girl. “Can you tell us that?”

  “They want to… look at us.”

  “Look at us?”

  “Experiment.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “We have to get to the house,” Ma Poppun said. “Head to the bunkers. That was always the safest place.”

  “There’s a whole courtyard between us and the house,” Hossip said. “We don’t want to be going outside.”

  The cook nodded. “I know.”

  “And the Vengeance is everywhere. We wouldn’t get a foot outside the door.”

  Ma Poppun looked at Visenai, who was standing quietly beside the door.

  “Is everything all right?”

  In the silence that followed, all the Ma could hear was shallow breathing from the girl. Eventually Visenai turned to them.

  “I think fire might keep them away.”

  Hossip shook his head.

  “Old drunks’ tale, that,” he said. “I’ve never heard of one person who’s ever lived to prove it.”

  Visenai turned and approached the fire. She bent and picked up a flat piece of smouldering wood, then went back to the door and slid it through the gap at its base. The girl stood up.

  “What are we doing now?” Hossip asked.

  “Waiting,” Visenai said.

  The girl cleared her mind, slowed her breath. She thought about the space just beyond the door. It was muddied, thick, to begin with, then after a few moments, she could feel it give a little, then a little more, and she felt the sensation of the smoke brush over her face.

  “I think it works,” she said.

  The girl stepped up to the door, placed a hand on the bolt, and slid it back.

  “Is this wise?” Hossip asked, distress apparent in his voice.

  “Trust her,” Ma Poppun said.

  Visenai opened the door a crack and looked outside.

  “Well?” the coachman said.

  The serving girl opened the door wider, and they all saw the hollow that had formed in the darkness outside.

  “All right,” Ma Poppun said. “This is what we’re going to do.”

  *

  Hossip held the table-top in his hands as Ma Poppun applied the last of the oil-soaked cloth.

  “And this is going to work?” he asked.

  “Stop complaining.”

  “Why don’t we just stay here? The Vengeance won’t come inside.”

  “The Vengeance won’t, but what’s inside the Vengeance might.”

  Visenai looked up at them.

  “We need to go,” she said.

  “Can I have the keys?” the cook asked the coachman. Hossip produced the keys and handed them over. “Thank you. Visenai, light your torches.”

  The girl stepped forward and put her two torches into the fire. They ignited immediately with a wumph! Ma Poppun put her torch against one of Visenai’s. The room grew very hot.

  “Here goes,” Ma Poppun called over the sound of the flames. “Positions.”

  The cook stood facing the door holding her torch high in the air. The girl, just in front of her, held her two torches out at the sides. Ma Poppun opened the kitchen door, and reached her left arm behind her. Hossip, who stood wi
th his back close to hers, hooked his right elbow into her left. He held the table-top up in front of him.

  At one with the others, Ma Poppun took two steps forward until the torches were just outside. The Vengeance retreated. This might work, thought the cook.

  “Don’t forget me,” Hossip called.

  Visenai looked around at the coachman and his table-top. She moved the torch in her left hand back and touched its flame to the wood. An even bigger wumph!

  “No time to lose,” Ma Poppun reminded them. “Fast but steady.”

  They moved further outside. The Vengeance moved further away.

  “It’s working,” Hossip shouted, looking at the retreating darkness.

  They now had a little circle of clearance around them. Visenai, eyes shut and seeing with her mind, led the way.

  *

  They were all scared, from the Ma to the coachman to the little girl. The Vengeance was a thing of horror that lurked in the back of your mind; a constant threat of death, and now they were in the middle of it.

  Everyone knew someone who had been taken by the Vengeance. No matter how careful you were, mistakes were made, accidents happened.

  Visenai knew better than any of them what sort of things were in the Vengeance. She knew however much it resembled pure darkness, there were other things beyond, waiting for them to get too close.

  Ma Poppun, the oldest of the three, had had to deal with it the longest. As she made her way across the courtyard, in the middle of the fiery beast they’d constructed, her heart thundered in her ears. Her legs, half-useless as best, were close to crumbling underneath her from fright. Each step she took was from the pure defiance conjured by the memories of all the people it had taken from her. She would reach the house, she would survive. She would not be defeated.

  *

  Hossip was focused on the now. What they were doing was mad, it was foolish, but above all else, it was hot. His hands were already warmer than he would have liked, and the wall of fire he was holding was only going to get hotter.

  “Get a move on,” he whispered, and for once he wasn’t moaning just for the sake of it. If they didn’t get to the house quickly, he was going to lose his hands.

  *

  Ma Poppun saw the base of the statue, and breathed a sigh of relief. They were halfway across.

  “Are you all right?” she asked Visenai. The girl nodded, and coughed.

  “The smoke…” she said. “It’s difficult to concentrate.”

  The girl took another step forward. The Vengeance retreated. Another step, and she almost stumbled. There was something there, in front of them. At first she thought it was a creature, but after a moment she realised it was something more static; a wall of… something.

  “It’s hay,” Ma Poppun said. “They’ve built a wall of hay to slow us down.”

  “Can we go around it?” Hossip shouted.

  “We can try.”

  They started to follow the path of the hay wall, heading to Visenai’s left, but the further they went, the more wall there was. It bent back around them, encircling them. On and on it went. Visenai, coughing more, found it difficult to keep her bearings; all they had was floor and wall.

  “Are we surrounded?” Hossip said.

  Ma Poppun searched for a gap.

  “I think so,” she said under her breath. “They built it round us as we walked. They’re waiting until our torches go out.”

  “Then we only have one option,” Hossip said. “Burn it all.”

  “But we’ll roast alive!” said the cook.

  “I’d rather roast alive then be taken by the Vengeance.”

  “There’s more than just you to think about!” Ma Poppun said.

  Almost as soon as she said it, the girl stepped forward and touched her torch to the nearest bale.

  “Get back,” she shouted.

  The three of them moved quickly, reaching the statue of the horse in the middle just as fire really started to take hold. Hossip dropped his table to the ground, and blew on his hot hands.

  The three of them watched as the fire spread out in both directions, until, at last, it encircled them. The circle was clear from the Vengeance, and the wall stood about twenty feet away.

  Ma Poppun took the girl to her and sheltered her with her arms. Hossip covered Ma Poppun with his body, and the three of them remained like that as the fire raged around them.

  *

  Just when Ma Poppun thought the fire couldn’t get any hotter, the temperature increased. For a moment she thought she heard Visenai crying, but then realised it was Hossip, as his back started to blister.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” she said. “We’ve got to!”

  She felt Hossip tense suddenly, and then go limp, as he passed out from the pain. Ma Poppun looked all around, but all she saw was flames.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Visenai. “I’m sorry I suggested this.”

  The heat was so strong, she felt as if she would burst into flames at any minute.

  “Help us!” Ma Poppun called. “If anyone can hear me, help us. Help the girl!”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth, then something did happen. Ma Poppun sensed it more than anything else, and for a fleeting second, the cook thought that was what it must feel like to be Visenai. She looked up and saw a shower of flames start to rain down on them.

  The next moment she was standing up, and something was pushing them. She didn’t know what. She turned and saw the coachman collapsed on the ground.

  “Hossip!” she called.

  And then something lifted Hossip whilst he was still unconscious, and all of them were moved toward a gap in the flames.

  They’ll get us, she thought as they passed through the gap. The Vengeance will get us. But then she saw the girl, Visenai, carrying the torch she’d had earlier, and now the torch flames shot out in all directions like a massive sail, and they were following in its wake.

  Ma Poppun thought she was dying then. She thought this was her brain showing her one last hopeful dream before the smoke choked her forever.

  Visenai turned and looked at her, smiling.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said. And then Ma Poppun felt her legs give way altogether, because the girl no longer had any eyes. Where there should have been eyes, there were stars instead. Stars and stars and stars, stretching out forever, yet held within the girl.

  Ma Poppun had no energy to brace herself as the ground rose up to meet her. But something caught her, and she too was carried unconscious into the house.

  Annihilation

  Jenza dreamed.

  She had been dreaming for a while, but the dreams were little more than a low buzz, like an unseen mosquito you’re aware of but can’t see. She didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. This could have been the afterlife. These could have been her days until the end of time.

  Then the haze cleared, and she was floating, able to control her movements with her thoughts. It was unlike any dream she’d ever had. It was… freeing. Below her, the landscape was shrouded in mist. Not the darkness of the Vengeance, but the normal grey of the morning mists drifting on lakes or rivers. She did not fear the mist. She did not fear falling.

  She did not feel fear.

  In the distance were mountains; the vague darkness of them sitting on the very edge of her perception, and the mist hung in the air all the way to them without punctuation.

  Jenza thought, Up, and she rose higher into the air. It seemed to grow colder, and part of her thought it strange that a dream could do that. She thought, Turn, and even though she didn’t say in which direction and by how much, she turned to where she wanted to face. Jenza thought, Forward, and she felt the air brush past her as she floated forward. This dream was so much better than the others where she was unable to run, where she had to get down on all fours, like an animal, and scamper around to achieve any speed.

  Jenza wondered.

  What was below the mist? She thought about going down,
but did not give the command. Why was the mist there at all?

  Jenza thought, Up.

  The field was vast. Like a reflection of the sky, never-ending. She thought, Forward, and she went forward. She leaned forward, too, and the more she leaned, the faster she travelled. She kept going and going, but the field and the mist didn’t stop or look like it was going to stop.

  Why a field?

  Jenza stopped.

  Why was it a field? What had made her think that? She knew the answer instantly; nothing. There was no reason why it might be a field, but she knew it was true. It was a field. Then something else began to seep through, an aroma, quite faint from her current height, but there nonetheless. It was not a pleasant aroma.

  This is not a good dream.

  Jenza looked around at the mist. What was below it? She didn’t want to find out. She didn’t want to be here at all, but the dream was too deep.

  “Too deep,” she said, and she heard it over the buzz of the dream.

  This is not a good dream.

  Jenza listened.

  That noise was not just a buzz. She thought, down, even though everything was telling her down was not where she wanted to go. Down, she thought again, and dropped lower still. The smell became almost overwhelming, and the noise was so much louder. Yet that was not the worst of it.

  It was the mist, yet it wasn’t a mist, she saw now, but a haze made from millions upon millions of flies; hovering, shifting, landing on something. Landing. And that many flies only meant one thing.

  In the distance, or in her head, a massive boom erupted, like a volcano, or a thunderstorm, intense and prolonged. The mist, the flies, rose up as one. Rose up and up, came closer and closer to Jenza, floating in the air. Up, Jenza thought, but she could no longer go up. It was as if her fear was stopping her thoughts from working. UP, she screamed, but nothing happened. The flies flew nearer.

  The stench was overpowering. She felt light-headed, as if she might faint. Up, up, up, she thought desperately. Then the flies were under her feet, around her waist, over her head, so Jenza raised her hands, trying to batter them away from her, knowing that it was a lost cause.